Friday, January 13, 2012

This is a fascinating book that collects mail order advertisements that appeared in between the stories in popular comic books during the 60s and the 70s.

The advertisements reflects a time when there was a charm for simple things, yet mysterious and fun. The products included anything and everything that would kindle the wild imagination of the mostly young adolescent readers, and wanting them to order them right away.

Be it a larger-than-life monster, or an army of toy soldiers, spy pens, gags, magic tricks or an instant money maker(!) or the ultimate gadget the X-ray specs, these ads had everything a kid ever wanted.

This book collects almost all of such ads, in a rock solid hardbound cover. The pages inside are very thick and this book is made to last. The style brings back the pulp comic book look and feel, yet in a rugged fashion. Very well made.

The author classifies the ads nicely into a few interesting categories..

Super powers

War Zone

House of Horrors

High Finance

Better Living

Top Secret

Trickery

Oddities

Each ad is presented with the picture of the ad along with following nice and hilarious analysis,

'We Imagined'

'They Sent'

'Behind the Mystery' (for some items)

'Customer Satisfaction'

This is an awesome recollection of the days gone by, for those who read those books and were part of the pulp comic book era, and a fascinating read for those who came in late.

This is an extract from my review at Amazon.com, You can find more of my reviews here.

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I am an Information Technology Consultant living in Chennai, curious and passionate about several things. My craving for knowing and understanding things has led me from one small thing to the other and eventually to the Ultimate truth. With the new world view, I keep enjoying learning new things at its own leisurely pace and share here my thoughts as I encounter the events.